2.18.2017

Hirsutas tempestades / Francisco Pérez Perdomo

Hirsute Tempests

He was looking for the first
and last time at his land.
The land that came from
within. He wanted to remain
there for all of eternity.
To be just another dead man,
among the rest of the deceased,
in the entire universe. In
repeated machine-like gestures,
he would search within himself
for something imaginary
without ever
finding it, and once again it was stirring
inside, like souls
in limbo, the portents,
and, funereal, they tormented him.
Alone, as if they were
a creaking, he might see some
fiery serpents
crossing through space.
He had lost his center
of gravity and couldn’t
find it anywhere. With his phantasmal
face, he was a shadow
amidst the shadows.
He was, likewise, whipped
to his very bones
by vertiginous lightning bolts
and hirsute tempests.